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Microsoft

How To Make Dual Booting A (Bigger) Pain 518

Posted by timothy from the step-11-involves-a-hair-shirt dept.
the_phenom writes "Thinking of dual-booting your Windoze XP 17" Toshiba P25 laptop? Think again - this one 'uses a DVD with an already setup version of Windows XP Home and then transfers it to the notebook's hard drive,' preventing the normal setup procedure and thus, dual-booting." This reminds me of the unfriendly practice on some PC builders' parts of including an OS "backup" only on a hard-drive partition.
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How To Make Dual Booting A (Bigger) Pain More

How To Make Dual Booting A (Bigger) Pain

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  • IBM does this to Thinkpads (Score:4, Informative)

    by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @10:59PM (#6482003) Homepage Journal
    They also included the Windows drivers for the hardware there, too. I had to wipe the drive and do a Ghost image install of Win2k, and only after I'd wiped both(?!) partitions on the drive did it occur to me that I needed one of them to get all the hardware working. I eventually got an ethernet driver re-assembled from floppies and got on the internet to download the rest. That's 2 hours of my life I'll never get back. . .

    • Re:IBM does this to Thinkpads (Score:5, Informative)

      by myst564 ( 196476 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:02PM (#6482030)
      You can call IBM and they will send you CDs for your ThinkPad. They don't usually come with the laptops from the factory because most people never need them.

      Basically it costs less on their part.

      • Re:IBM does this to Thinkpads (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gerbache ( 540848 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:14PM (#6482100)
        Since CDs are such a terribly expensive part compared to the cost of a laptop. This seems like a really silly way to cut costs, if you ask me. Sure, most people will never need them, but if they do, it becomes a pain to fix the problem....

        • Re:IBM does this to Thinkpads (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:22AM (#6482368)
          > Since CDs are such a terribly expensive part compared to the cost of a laptop. This seems like a really silly way to cut costs, if you ask me.

          You're not used to dealing with manufacturing hundreds of thousands of something.

          In those quantities, pennies count. In this context, a CD that's not needed almost all of the time is indeed an unwanted expense - multiply the cost of that CD by x00,000 and you've cut a big slice out of the overall profit of the product.

          • Re:IBM does this to Thinkpads (Score:5, Informative)

            by rvega ( 630035 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @04:51AM (#6483116)
            There's also the support issue. If you give "average" users one and only one way to load their software, it simplifies your support procedure in many ways. When you let them do custom installations from setup CDs, there are many more variables you have to consider during support calls. I can't blame them for trying to make the process as simple as possible.

            If profit margins in the PC market are as razor-thin as some say, you can be sure that any extra expense in manufacturing, distribution and support will be passed on to the customers as higher prices.

      • Re:IBM does this to Thinkpads (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Drakonite ( 523948 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:56PM (#6482281) Homepage
        HP will send you CD's as well. Unfortunately that doesn't always help.

        My sister and I bought identical HP computers a while back, and after some troubles we needed the rescue CDs, and HP was more than happy to send rescue CDs to us, just not the right ones. Long story short, I have 6 sets of rescue CDs in my office that do me no good, and a company I'll never buy computer parts from again.

        The other problem is that with the model of HP I had (and assumably most other models as well) you had to buy a special copy of windows directly from HP (presumably with a huge markup on an already over priced product..) in order to get most versions of windows to work at all.

        Moral of the story is, plans like these hurt the consumers and help create/maintain monopolies. It's too bad THESE situations wouldn't get taken to court...

      • Actually, IBM laptops are also used a lot in corporations that just dump their local image in and don't care a shit what IBM shipped with the laptop.

        Another thing that you can also get all the Thinkpad drivers from their website.

    • Re:Not only IBM (Score:3, Informative)

      by justsomebody ( 525308 )
      HP does it too.

      The only bad thing I see in that is that serial on the back of notebook doesn't work with common install CD.

      • Re:Not only IBM (Score:3, Informative)

        by ncc74656 ( 45571 )

        The only bad thing I see in that is that serial on the back of notebook doesn't work with common install CD.

        It's not supposed to work. That CD key is for an OEM install, while the CD you have is most likely a retail CD. You need to either (1) score an OEM WinXP CD (some places will sell OEM software with some cheap hardware (like an old 486 or Pentium, or even an IDE cable) thrown in to make it a qualified purchase) or (2) use the WinXP keygen (it's out there) to create a CD key that works with a reta

    • You must not have tried to partition the drive and leave the first partition empty...Windows will install on the first empty one, then you install Linux with a boot loader....

    • So does NEC (Score:3, Informative)

      by yuri benjamin ( 222127 )
      I recently got an NEC Versa from my insurance company to replace a stolen laptop after we got burgled.
      It came with XP. I wanted to run Mdk 9.1 so I thought I'd go for a dual boot.
      In the process of installing Mdk I accidently nuked the wrong wrong windows partition (I nuked /mnt/win_d instead of /mnt/win_c because I thought d: would be the data partition and c: would be the boot/program partition - wrong!
      Later, I decided to burn /home to CDR and try re-installing as dual boot, but the NEC restore CD did not

    • I had to wipe the drive and do a Ghost image install of Win2k, and only after I'd wiped both(?!) partitions on the drive did it occur to me that I needed one of them to get all the hardware working. I eventually got an ethernet driver re-assembled from floppies and got on the internet to download the rest

      Dell does this also with their Inspiron Celeron notebooks. There are proprietary motherboard Ethernet drivers located in C:\DRIVERS of the machine. When my WinXP blew up in my face and I was reinstalling

  • maybe i'm wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:00PM (#6482011)
    but can't you install linux after windows is already installed? like... use partition magic or something to resize and create a new partition and install linux on that? i havn't done this, but I'm surprised it would really be a problem.
    • Yes...by using Partition Magic. But the point is that Partition Magic is not free ($70, I think, but this could be way off) and you should not have to buy a third-party program that can be performed by programs that Microsoft provies free (fdsik).

      • Re:maybe i'm wrong... (Score:5, Informative)

        by BroncoInCalifornia ( 605476 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:22PM (#6482134)
        The Knoppix CD has QTparted. This is a great GUI wrapper for various tools to partition and resise partitions. You can even shrink NTFS partitions. The Knoppix CD boots to Linux without doing anything to the hard drive. It is great. Free download of ISO image is available.

        You can also use the Knoppix CD to install Debian Unstable to the hard drive. 2 warnings:
        1) It will put LiLo on the MBR. ( I prefer to put it on the boot record of the /boot partition.)
        2) After hard drive intall it will first boot with KDE in German! It is hard to find the right GUIs to get it into English. There are instructions on the internet on how to find these GUIs.

      • Re:maybe i'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gladbach ( 527602 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:24PM (#6482147)
        there are other partition tools besides partition magic. such as parted, and even ones that come w/ various distros of linux.

        imho, this whole article is BS. the reason computer makers utilise these "restore" disks is for their main customers, people who have no clue and just want to be able to point and click. They realise that those who know what they are doing will get around it, and do what ever they want anyways. quit bitching, its pointless, and stop acting like your wheaties just got pissed in or something.

        also, since when do you need windows disks? resize the partion, and hell, you can even use the boot.ini to boot to linux, dont even need to screw with the drives MBR.

        its not hard people, get over it, and constantly looking for reasons to jump on the "M$ sucks, DAMN THE MAN" bandwagon over every miniscule little thing. choose your battles, you just make us look stupid.

        • Re:maybe i'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:07AM (#6482318)
          Back when I was a Windows admin (I've also cleaned the toilets at Burger King, which is almost as bad) it was very easy to create a scripted install so that you could just pop in a CD and it does the rest. You could (and probably still can) do this with the standard retail distribution CDs and the Windows resource kit. The real reason for these crippled "restore" CDs is to prevent people from copying them or selling them. It has nothing to do with making the installs any easier.

    • Re:maybe i'm wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TheIzzy ( 615852 )
      Many distros (including the latest Mandrake) come with partition resizing software for ntfs, fat, and others, but the point is it's still another major hassle that shouldn't be there.
      • You're right, it shouldn't be there. Is it, however, any suprise? Seeing as how Linuz has been moved to #2 on the M$ threat list (in otherwords, the next on the hitlist). As others have stated, this started quite a while back, but its not hard to resize a partition. I say, suck it up, and keep on truckin, and if you have to use the recovery disk, for some strange reason, ghost the image of that partition, and then put it back after you recover. Yeah, its an inconvenience, but its not utterly horrible.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:01PM (#6482019) Journal

    Since when are Windows CDs a requirement for dual booting? I've installed a dual boot solution just fine WITHOUT any Windows CDs. That's on 98se, 2k and XP Pro. Worked like a dream and I simply did NOT need the CD, nor can I think of any situation where I WOULD need the CD. (then again, it's 5 am in the morning, I think I can barely be qualified as sentient atm)

    So to put it in a simple way:

    What's the fecking problem!?


    • No kidding.

      You'll notice the ones who are crying the loudest in this post are the ones who are most clueless about how to dual boot. Its like they'
      ll screw it up by their own actions, then blame Microsoft for the fact they cant get their box to boot.

      99.9% of the time, the problem with dual booting is user-related, i.e. the user doesn't know what the fuck they're doing and fucks up their MBR. The other 0.01% of the time, it's both user AND hardware related, i.e. they have some sort of fucked up configurat

    • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Homology ( 639438 )
      (then again, it's 5 am in the morning, I think I can barely be qualified as sentient atm)

      I'm not sure that 5 in the morning has anything to do with you beeing sentient or not.

      So to put it in a simple way: What's the fecking problem!?

      You don't have a program that can resize your Windows partition and you need to re-install. Besides if you manange to screw up your Windows partition (say, got infected by a virus), you don't want to overwrite your Linux partition while re-installing Windows, eh?

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:27PM (#6482168) Journal
        You don't have a program that can resize your Windows partition and you need to re-install. Besides if you manange to screw up your Windows partition (say, got infected by a virus), you don't want to overwrite your Linux partition while re-installing Windows, eh?

        Sadly for you, modern linux distros are quite capable of resizing preset partitions, much like Partition Magic can, which is already mentioned. Even if your favourite distro can NOT do so, it can't be too hard to find the correct utility which can, burn it along on the CD and the manually resize the damned partition. Partition resized, Linux can be installed. When done, make an image of your entire HD, keep it somewhere safe (burn it to DVD, keep it on a small stack of CD-roms, hide it under your bed, whatever) and then happily use your computer. If YOU fuck up Windows (Blaming Microsoft is easier, but fact is, Windows is most often mangled by incompetent users doing stuff they shouldn't be doing.) then it is YOUR responsibility to have made proper backups of the full HD with Linux already installed. Same thing applies when it is NOT your fault, your data is still your responsibility

        That said, 5 am is a very good excuse, canadian.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Bios_Hakr ( 68586 ) <xptical@g3.14mail.com minus pi> on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:08AM (#6482322)
        I have never tried, but it seems you could install WinXP, resize the drive, install Linux, and then use "dd" to backup the windows partition.

        On my laptop, I wanted the WinXP drive to use fat32 vice ntfs. The way I went about it was to spend about an hour on kazaa downloading WinXP. I have a license to use WinXP, and now I have a WinXP CD. It may not be legal, but it is completely ethical.

        • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Homology ( 639438 )
          The way I went about it was to spend about an hour on kazaa downloading WinXP.

          How do you know that you have not downloaded a trojaned version of WinXP?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:2, Funny)

      by xSauronx ( 608805 )
      how the hell does this even get merited for an article. i could care less how they install windows on a notebook. you can still resize the partition, and use a linux bootdisk without a problem....unless they glue the windows dvd into the dvd player! aha!

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:43PM (#6482231) Journal
      Because it works like this...

      1. Boot machine for first time with DVD in drive. It boots from DVD.

      2. Agree to be Bill Gates' towel boy, click "okay"

      3. System them uses Windows equivalent of "dd" to copy image from DVD to hard drive, overwriting anything on the drive.

      What you'd end up having to do is install Win first, then resize the partition and install Linux afterwards.

      If you have to reinstall Windows, it'll kill your existing Linux partition because it will overwrite the drive with its image.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

        by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @01:09AM (#6482508)

        If you have to reinstall Windows, it'll kill your existing Linux partition because it will overwrite the drive with its image.

        That is not entirely correct. If you put your Linux install far enough back on the disk it will still be there. The Toshiba recovery program only makes the filesystem, it does not destructively format the disk, so only the first couple of gigs get overwritten. I sort of stumbled onto this little gem with my Toshiba last year. I had bought WindowsXP (please no flames, this was before I heard about Linux), formatted the drive, split it to two 10 BB partitions and installed XP. Several months later I learned of Linux and installed it on the second disk.

        I realized that XP was just God-awful slow and decided I wanted to restore the original WinMe (since I wasn't using it for anything other than a few old games) and give away the XP CD to someone who would actually use it. I hadn't tweaked my Linux install too much, so I was planning on reinstalling after restoring Windows. As I read the documentation for parted I noticed that there was a rescue command, so I booted to parted, printed the partition table and copied it down. I then restored windows, resized the C: drive back to the size I had it at before and then rescued my Linux partition. I mounted the Linux partition, and ran 'chroot /mnt/linux lilo' and I was good to go.

        I don't know if this will still work with the newer recovery DVDs, but I don't see why it wouldn't.

      • If you have to reinstall Windows, it'll kill your existing Linux partition because it will overwrite the drive with its image.

        I wonder about that. If you boot to Linux and mess with the MBR to show the entire disk occupying just the cylinders of the NTFS partition, and go into the BIOS to show that same number of cylinders, it might just leave the rest alone.

        On my desktop box, when I reinstalled XP, reformatted both NTFS partitions, but left the ext3, FAT32 and swap the heck alone.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

        by kcbrown ( 7426 )

        Because it works like this...

        1. Boot machine for first time with DVD in drive. It boots from DVD.
        2. Agree to be Bill Gates' towel boy, click "okay"
        3. System them uses Windows equivalent of "dd" to copy image from DVD to hard drive, overwriting anything on the drive.

        What you'd end up having to do is install Win first, then resize the partition and install Linux afterwards.

        Most people here will believe that this is evidence of Microsoft being anticompetitive, that it's done to make more money for Mic

  • How is this news? (Score:5, Informative)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:01PM (#6482021) Journal
    How is this news? Tosh and other vendors have been selling PCs with only a "recovery CD" that wipes everything for years.

    • Yeah, and it's very easy to resize an ntfs partition [rulez.org] to make room.... This is not even remotely close to being news.
      • Yeah, and I've found the hard way that ntfsresize is by no means idiot-proof, very far from it. I'm not so much an idiot but sometimes mistyping or forgetful, and that was enough for me to screw up the company laptop...

    • Re:How is this news? (Score:2, Informative)

      by ImpTech ( 549794 )
      Sure, this isn't really news. Vendors have been doing it for a while. Its still pretty crappy though. I mean, even if I'm not dual-booting, I paid for Windows XP and I want Windows XP. I don't want its retarded cousin who doesn't have a proper install procedure. At the very least the vendor should make it clear that you're getting a Recovery CD and not the actual install disc. I guess maybe recovery cds are fine for joe blow who doesn't know a damn thing about his system, but for those of us who want

      • Re:How is this news? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Kenja ( 541830 )
        No, you paid for a notebook running Windows XP and thats what you got. Whats more the vendors do make it clear what your getting if you know where to look.
    • Well, my Dad had a Toshiba desktop that had only a recovery CD, but when he requested it they sent him the actual Windows disk. Have they stopped doing this?

  • Quite a few OEMs do this (Score:5, Informative)

    by nacs ( 658138 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:02PM (#6482027) Journal
    One of my HP machines had a similar setup where Windows 98 (one of my older machines) was distributed as an image on 2 "HP Recovery CDs".

    To install Linux on these boxes, I simply resized the Windows 98 partition down to 2 GB and used the other 16GB of freespace to install Linux.

  • news??? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:02PM (#6482028)
    How is this any different from the "system recovery" disks that have been shipping with laptops for years. I can't remember when I last bought a laptop that came with just a plain OS install disk.

  • I don't understand (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dysprosia ( 661648 )
    What's to prevent you from installing XP once, using something like Partition Magic to resize the partitions, and then installing Linux or whatever? Seems to me the only evil thing about this is that reinstalling XP might be a pain?

  • OK, this is really complex... (Score:4, Informative)

    by AKnightCowboy ( 608632 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:03PM (#6482032)
    Use Partition Magic to shrink the XP partition and create space for a Linux partition. How is this any different than thousands of other computer systems out there that come with a rescue disk to rebuild the system to the factory installed image? Yes, for the 1% of users that want to dual boot it will be a minor pain. For the other 99% of the users a rescue image like that is a godsend and saves support costs for the company. If the computer is completely hosed, stick the DVD in and reformat/reload. No need to pay a computer geek to work his magic on your broken Windows box.

  • Resize existing windows partition (Score:5, Informative)

    by digitalhermit ( 113459 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:04PM (#6482041) Homepage
    If it's a regular Windows installation on an NTFS disk you can still install Linux by resizing. You can use either Partition Magick or the first disk of the Mandrake 9.1 set to resize the NTFS disk. Make sure to defrag the NTFS partition from within Windows first before doing this procedure or else the contents will be destroyed.

    The problem seems to be that the image is the size of the disk so reinstallation of Windows, once Linux is already installed, will overwrite all partitions. It's just a complete disk image on the DVD. One workaround is to do the Windows installation, install Linux, use something like g4u [feyrer.de] to create a copy of your disk.

    Or, use dd from the Linux partition to copy the Windows image once it's all installed.

  • DUh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dcstimm ( 556797 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:05PM (#6482051) Homepage
    Almost every laptop sold nowadays only come with restore cds, they never EVER come with a full copy of windows. HECK nowadays HP and Compaqs just have a partition called RESTORE PARTITION, and thats the only way to restore them because they come with NO DISKS! You have to contact HP or COMPAQ to request them for a small fee. And even then, they are only restore cds. Basicly your just paying for a licence. Which means legally you can go to Kazaa and download a Win2k ISO and just use the licence you payed for. Simple....
    • All new Compaqs, sonys, and HPs come with a utility that allows you to create your own recovery CDs if you so desire it.

  • You just need another tool. (Score:3, Informative)

    by eric2hill ( 33085 ) <eric@[ ]ck.net ['ija' in gap]> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:05PM (#6482054) Homepage
    Go buy a copy of Partition Magic [powerquest.com]. Resize the C drive down, then install Linux. How easy could this get?
    • $69.95 for some software that'll only be used once? Wow, I thought it was possible to install Linux for free.
      • $69.95 for some software that'll only be used once?

        Yes. Well worth it too. I've used my copy hundreds of times to do restores, resize partitions when I ran out of space, etc. It's not _just_ for installing Linux.

        Wow, I thought it was possible to install Linux for free.

        It is. Go wipe your drive and install Linux. What's stopping you? Installing and running Linux is, and will always be, free. Making it work alongside Windows, without blowing data away, is another story.

  • Do not use the enclosed DVD, use an off the shelf version of Windows, if you so desire, I would be hella pissed though. I am sure you do not need to use the DVD exclusively. They at least need to disclose what they are doing in plain language, shame shame on Toshiba, I used to think their laptops were keen.

  • You can still install and dual boot linux (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jason Pollock ( 45537 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:06PM (#6482064) Homepage
    It isn't that hard. I had to do this with my Dell. Most systems now come with "image restore" disks instead of installation disks for software piracry reasons.

    Now, to dual-boot all you have to do is:

    1) resize your windows partition using any available tool (I purchased partition magic).
    2) Install linux in the newly created free space.
    3) Put the bootloader (I'm partial to Grub now) into the MBR.

    And you're off to the races!

    Of course, this means that if your windows partition goes south you have to backup your linux partition and start from scratch, but that's the risk you take.

    It doesn't stop you from installing linux, it doesn't stop you from dual-booting. It is simply a quick and easy way to install windows for a fixed hardware platform.

    Jason Pollock
  • In layman's terms, this is saying that there is no Windows setup program, just a pre-set hard drive image included.

    Now, the slashdot story alludes to the fact that most PC's don't come with a Windows disk anymore, but just Windows setup on the hard drive.

    My question to the readers with more insight than me on this is, HOW IS THE SECOND PARAGRAPH ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE FIRST? Why does it say it is a bigger booting pain? Isn't it exactly the same shit that's been going on? Is /. implying that right now,
  • Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems like a non-story to me. First, the linked article says nothing truly interesting, and second, Toshiba is well within their rights to make it difficult for you to dual-boot.

    Yes, it's a pain in the ass when they work against you, but there are other laptop manufacturers who claim to support Linux *coughIBMcough*, so vote with your feet, and buy toe-pens... I mean, buy from people who don't work against you.

  • Free tool to resize NTFS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Wolfier ( 94144 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:09PM (#6482078)
    here...
    http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsr esize.htm l

    Now we just have to pour some resource into it.
  • Most laptops, and most "end-user" systems (aka the ones that are built by Dell, IBM, etc.) don't include a real version of Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, but in fact are just a hard drive image of the OS, and if you want to reinstall it has to wipe out the whole HD and start over.

    This has been happening since 1997, and is probably not really worthy of an article. If you want a computer that doesn't have this, don't buy one from one of the "big names".

  • Get a full install disk (Score:5, Interesting)

    by squarooticus ( 5092 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:14PM (#6482096) Homepage
    Why not just borrow a full install disk of XP from a friend? Surely this is a good example of fair use, considering you already own a license to the operating system, albeit a different copy.
    • Because the copy that comes with the machine is pre-activated, and the one that you install from a friend is not. So, you have to call M$ up to "reactivate"... at which point they might know that your PC was shipped with a disc that had a pre-activated version, etc.

      I don't think it'll turn out quite as easy as reading the number off the sticker on the bottom of the machine to a M$ rep, and getting the activation code in return.

  • Dual boot works just fine. I can boot either QNX or Linux.
  • Why don't you get on IRC and download an ISO of Windows XP and install from that? It's not 100% legal, but you do have a license for Windows XP. Sometimes the ends justify the means.

  • This is a non-issue (Score:5, Informative)

    by The Vulture ( 248871 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:20PM (#6482123) Homepage

    As others have stated, this is a non-issue.

    My Compaq Presario 2715US came with Windows XP on a series of three CD's that will wipe everything before putting them back on. As far as I know, this is fairly common practice nowadays. The twist here is that all of the Microsoft applications (XP and Works) and the drivers are within the image, all of the other apps that came with it (WinDVD, Symantec Anti-Virus, etc.) are included on their own CD's.

    It's easy to make a dual-boot. Resize the NTFS partition, and then install Linux into the empty space. GRUB or LILO will then install into the MBR, and presto, dual-boot!

    The thing that I hate about XP versus Windows 2000 (and earlier, I believe) is that XP seems to deliberately clobber the MBR. For example, if I install Linux (and GRUB or LILO), then install XP afterwards, GRUB/LILO is gone, I have to use a boot-disk to get back into Linux. This pisses me off to no end.

    As for those images... If you get Windows 2000 or Windows XP images, you've almost got a full-bootable copy. The image for my laptop was made with (I think) DriveImage, and I was able to get an evaulation copy of it, and it allowed me to extract the i386 (CABs) directory. From there, I just had to borrow a few files (like setup.exe, etc.) from a friends' XP installation CD (which indicently came with a Dell laptop he bought), and make it bootable according to Bink's page [www.bink.nu]

    Of course, not knowing fully about how Windows XP's activation works, I didn't want to just make a copy of his XP install CD, in case it was keyed for a Dell laptop. And, just in case, it somehow cut him off. :)

    -- Joe

  • Recently I saw an article on MS's web site that most system problems were caused by people installing WindowsXP by themselves, and that users should hire a tech professional instead. I suspect they do this just to try to close off the white-box market.

  • Bought an Averatec 3120 at Bestbuy and wanted a dual boot Linux/XP.

    The "recovery CD" (more like destruction CD) came with a pre-installed XP and it would re-format the drive automatically. I could see the ghost image but I couldn't use it because it was locked with a password. What I did is booted with the CD and pressed F8 and then loaded in step by step mode but I skipped the last command, which was launching the mambo-hombo mayhem. The script was actually calling an oem ghost using a password.

    I wrote d
  • This fellow can just use a friends regular OEM XP CD and his product key and be perfectly legal. He just has to give his friend the CD back.
  • Uh.. just install and then resize/reparition the drive. If it will allow to use FAT do that as there are freeware apps that will resize for you. If it forces you to use NTFS then youll have to buy something like partition magic that can handle NTFS volumes. This really isnt a huge deal infact it might only be a problem if you need to 'reinstall' windows as then it will most likly wipe your linux partitions. Of course if you made backups it should be cool.

  • it's not some sneaky move (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UniverseIsADoughnut ( 170909 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:29PM (#6482174)
    Why do people think this is some sneaky move, and look at MS. It's simple WinXP pro, for example, is 1.6gig installed, thats almost a gig bigger then a normal disk. So install takes a long time as it resets everything up. Having it on a dvd not compressed and allready set up makes perfect sense. It's for a laptop, very static hardware. For a regular user being able to put a disk in and it copys everything over and your good to go is a great thing. I also bet this was more of toshiba idea then MS's. They arn't building these things with the intent of dual boot, just doesn't make sense to worry about something 0.01% of those who buy one will do. Why not make it nicer for the 99.99 percent that will use it like normal.

    Also to other, I don't think any PC maker has included a straight off the shelf version of windows in nearly a decade. No computer I have bought or seen bought by someone had a true real version of windows with it. When you buy a computer from any OEM it comes with a quasi version of windows. This is no differant. Except if the HD crahses of have to re-install you can now do it in a few minutes instead of over an hour.
  • If you really, really want to run Windows and Linux on your new laptop, just tack on the cash for actual XP disks. I mean, you just bought a new laptop. It's not that much more, assuming Windows XP is essential to what you have to do. And don't wince at "paying twice" for Windows XP, Microsoft basically gives away its OS to dealers.

    That said, nobody buy Toshiba laptops.
  • That's one underpowered Pentium.
  • When it's something that's more convenient for 99% of your customers it's not unfriendly. Don't break out your foil hats yet...it's not malice...

  • Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by bedouin ( 248624 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:41PM (#6482227)
    The only Windows XP I know about is the "Devilsown" edition. Is this "home" thing some new release I need to get from IRC?

  • Real crux of the problem (Score:4, Insightful)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:41PM (#6482228)
    I don't think the author of the article clearly articulated his problem. This is what I understand:
    The new 17" Toshiba comes with a Windows DVD that basically mirror copies itself onto the hard drive (ghosting). Their is no interaction with the user so he can't specify partitions and the like. So he can't dual boot because all the partition is occupied by Windows and can't be changed (to his viewpoint). He can't format the HD and install Linux first because the Windows DVD will simply wipe out the HD and install Windows. Perhaps the author is doing it the only way he knows.

    As others pointed out, Partition Magic will allow him to change the partition and allow him to install a second OS. I would think that the author should have asked for some help before writing the article. I've never bought a system with a recovery disk, but then again the last system I bought and did not build was years ago. It's understandable about his frustration if he didn't know any better.

  • This isn't such a big deal (Score:5, Informative)

    by xenophrak ( 457095 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @11:44PM (#6482235)

    I have a Toshiba laptop with the same recovery disks (3 CD's instead of the DVD, but the same concept).

    It was a bit of a pain at first, as I did have to buy System Commander (which is very cool as a boot-loader and as a utility) to get around this. Since the install image is NTFS you'll need Partition magic 7 or 8 or SC7. Not sure if there is a freeware utility to munge NTFS partitions.

    Once up and running, I took a snapshot of the resized XP partition and now I don't need the recovery disks. It is nice though that Toshiba installs all of the drivers for you, and that the system works out of the box after re-imaging.

    As for running another O/S on this laptop, Linux and Solaris are VERY well supported, so I don't think I'd give up this laptop just cause of this slight inconvenience. The laptop is a 1415-S173 Celeron 1.8GHz which has a beautiful screen and was $850.00 new with rebate and 512MB. In short, it kicks price/performance ass.

  • No Problem (Score:5, Informative)

    by dalutong ( 260603 ) <djtansey@@@gmail...com> on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:24AM (#6482377)
    I read this article yesterday. I promptly emailed the editor. Here is a copy of my email.

    To Whom it May Concern:

    I have recently read an article on your website claiming there is no way
    to set up a dual-boot system on the new toshiba laptop. This is not true.

    There are now non-destructive ntfs filesystem resizing tools for linux.
    I personally used a live-CD to resize my windows partition before installing
    debian. I know that Mandrake comes with the tools by default and has the
    option for resizing windows partitions (NTFS) from the installer.

    here is a link to the FAQ:
    http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfsr esize. html

    I hope you can attach an editor's note so future readers will not be
    misled by this article.

    thank you,

    david tansey

  • An insiders opinion ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <be@@@eclec...tk> on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:42AM (#6482430) Homepage Journal
    Okay I have a Toshiba 5005-S507 (little older model) and I'm part of the class action lawsuit against Toshiba for this model.

    Here's some stuff you wouldn't realize until you made the mistake of buying one.

    1.) Toshiba's now come with a "BIOS-less" system which means that windows controls all the hardware and you can change NONE of the settings, which makes installing linux a real pain in the ass, but it is still possible.

    2.) Toshiba's have a problem of having their own "helping" software that when you boot with a net connection it will call home and download "updates" automatically for you. One such update was for my model to cut the clock speed in half.

    3.) Every toshiba I've owned has horrible battery life, you might as well consider them a computer with a built in UPS and easy to move around, and not a "portable laptop".

    4.) Toshiba has a little problem with laptops overheating (hence the lawsuit) and certain parts melting.

    5.) Toshiba's only selling point is their spec sheets, but as far as being a good purchase you're in for some real problems down the road, I have yet to meet someone who hasn't had some part of their toshiba fall apart and cost less than $100 to fix.

    All-in-all these laptops aren't that great, while they pack the latest and greatest they aren't exactly stellar machines. Overheating and hardware failures are certainly nothing new to toshiba's and I would recommend everyone read reviews of ANY laptop model out there.

    Remember while it may be cool to have a laptop usually there is something sub-par (make sure you check the waruntee by the manufacturer and highest screen resolution). And ALWAYS remember that if you have the opportunity to grab an extended or three year waruntee for less than $150 then go for it. The battery WILL die, you WILL lose a key on the keyboard, you WILL drop it at least once in 3 years, and something WILL die in it. These are not model specific by any means, these are general laptop things.

    Hope this helped ...

    • Devil's Advocate...sorta (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Obiwan Kenobi ( 32807 ) * <(evan) (at) (misterorange.com)> on Sunday July 20, 2003 @02:33AM (#6482795) Homepage
      Just to totally avoid pure FUD, I feel a few things should be noted:

      2.) Toshiba's have a problem of having their own "helping" software that when you boot with a net connection it will call home and download "updates" automatically for you. One such update was for my model to cut the clock speed in half.

      This was for Intel's Speedstep tech. This cuts the CPU down when the machine is idle in order to conserv on battery life. Mhz programs will read the CPU as half-speed, because your machine isn't doing anythign else...which leads to:

      3.) Every toshiba I've owned has horrible battery life, you might as well consider them a computer with a built in UPS and easy to move around, and not a "portable laptop".

      I'm not saying it was right for them to force those updates on you, but I hope you can at least see the connection.

  • Uh, why do you want XP Home anyway? (Score:5, Funny)

    by simetra ( 155655 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @12:57AM (#6482472) Homepage Journal
    Really, what's up with that? I think XP Home is made for people for whom this would be a total non-issue.

  • Microsoft has been doing this ever since they started barring OEM's from providing full versions of the OS on the CD's supplied with a new computer.

    To reinstall the OS now, the entire hard drive must be wiped, returning it to the exact state it was when it left the factory. This is a very shrewd anti-Linux move by MS. They have effectively made it impossible for people to repartition and reinstall Windows in a way that coexists with Linux, or any other OS for that matter.

    The thing to do is to make Linux install itself using the existing Windows filesystems already on the disk! The distribution Phat Linux is designed for just this, I have heard.

    http://www.phatlinux.com/ [phatlinux.com]

    It installs to an existing FAT32 or NTFS partition, and Linux is represented as a directory on a Windows drive! This is a good way to let people try out Linux without risking their Windows installation.

    What would be wonderful is a distribution that is standalone on a CD like Knoppix, and if the user likes what they see on the CD, they can also choose to install it to their hard drive in a Windows-safe way like Phat Linux. It will be great when we see a distribution like this, and it will really reduce people's fear of having Linux run on their computer. When they lose their fear of Linux, and are ready to take full advantage of it, they will then be ready to run it completely from its own partition.

  • Discs of EVIL (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cordath ( 581672 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @01:31AM (#6482573)
    My sister and her husband bought an absolutely horrendous piece of crap Packard Bell several years ago. It came with one of these lovely discs that wipe your HD and restor it to a "factory state". (Windows, with a sheitload of annoying, not to mention buggy, PackardBell spam and adware)

    At some point the computer finally gave up and collapsed under the weight of all the spamware it had been subjected to. They gave me a call and asked me to come over and take a look at it. I told them I'd pop over later on in the evening. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law decided he'd try to fix it before I got there... with Packard Bell's image disc. Financial records, their digital cam photo collection, my sisters grades (she's a teacher), and a thousand other useful things... Gone. Toast. Whoops! I took a red magic marker (the kind teachers seem to have oodles of) and labelled the offending disc "EVIL!". That was about all I could do.

    I'm sure my sister and her husband are not the only tech-unsavvy people who have fallen victim to these image discs of EVIL, and they've never even heard of Linux! These discs have been around for quite some time and I'm sure any manufacturer that uses them gets plenty of tech-support calls as a result. The only reason to use these discs seems to be that they let manufacturers include all sorts of annoying and useless software with their name on it. Frankly, it's a stupid practice and it hurts more than just Linux users.
  • Pretty simple, really.

    vmware rocks! It also saves you the hassle of having to re-install windows all the time - just make a backup of your drive C file after your first windows install!

    --jeff++

  • Do you trust vendor drive images? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Sunday July 20, 2003 @06:13AM (#6483277) Homepage
    It might be less of a problem from people like Dell rather than smaller firms, but I still will never truts a vendor drive image.

    What if they have 'conveniently' installed something like Gator on there for you? Or even their own custom internal reporting tool? No thanks.

    Now, I know that installing Windows from scratch can be said to be installing spyware (thanks to WMP etc) - but at least the crap it sends out is well documented and you stand a small chance of finding it and stopping it. With a drive image you have no idea what settings are enabled and what software is installed.

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